Depths of despair: Freediver Nicholas Mevoli was the most promi... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/depths-of-des...
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Depths of despair: Freediver Nicholas
Mevoli was the most promising athlete in
the US but an unhealthy obsession led
him to his death
Sara Campbell | Sunday 24 November 2013 20:50 GMT |
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top psychotherapists, waiting to uncover more about what drives
Voices
me in my chosen sport and my personal life. Her notes were
scribbled on the questionnaire I had spent almost an entire night
answering, and I was lled with dread at the impending verdict.
Well, Im extremely surprised, she said, raising her eyebrows.
I had you down as a reckless risk-taker, someone with an
extremely low regard for her own wellbeing and safety. But
according to this, youre very conservative. I really didnt expect
that.
I am a former competitive freediver with four world records in
deep freediving descending to more than 100 metres on one
breath. I now coach. To an outsider, freediving seems
irresponsible, dangerous and, quite frankly, stupid. This wasnt
far from my own perception when I joined a beginners course in
2005.
Since then, freediving has shown me that it is anything but. It is
about relaxation. It is an expression of spirituality, a form of
meditation, a way of living in complete harmony with nature.
Freediving is an exploration of our potential beyond the connes
of our mind. It has taught me a better, healthier, more joyful way
of living.
One of the paradoxes of competitive freediving is learning how to
relax and switch o the urge to win and yet still walk away with
that medal or title. It is the most delicate balance between the
drive to succeed, and a letting go of all desire for titles, goals and
recognition. We walk a highwire between wanting to reach a new
depth, and releasing all wanting. To perform the perfect dive, we
have to let go of the need to succeed.
When we relax, our muscles soften and it is this softness that
enables us to dive so deep and return unharmed. From the
surface to just 10 metres depth, the pressure on our bodies and
the airspaces within it doubles. As the pressure increases, so
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eleventh of the size they were when I took my nal breath in.
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If I am not relaxed, compression cannot take place, and the soft
tissues of the lungs are what will have to give, causing an injury
we call a lung squeeze. This means under-pressure in the lungs
draws uids from the capillaries into the air spaces, allowing
them to compress. A lung squeeze can present as mildly as a
tickly cough or minuscule spots of blood within the saliva, to
more severe blobs of blood the size of 20 pence or even 50 pence
coins being coughed up, once or many times. All divers know to
take at least several days full rest after a very mild squeeze, much
more for severe injuries.
Unfortunately, the competitive sport of freediving suered its
greatest tragedy last week, with the death the rst in its history
of Nicholas Mevoli, a 32-year-old US freediver, in an attempt at
a national record in the discipline of No Fins (adapted
breaststroke) to 72 metres.
I met Nick last year at the Team World Championships in
France, where I was coaching athletes in meditation techniques
and he was part of the American team. He approached me for
advice one morning; his team members were accusing him of
pushing too hard, diving for personal glory and not being a team
player. He was frustrated at being held back. I knew his
teammates were not just worried about Nick damaging their
chances, they were genuinely worried about him damaging his
own health. I had watched his progress he was the most
promising athlete in the US, had great potential and natural
talent, but also a worrying tendency to squeezes and even
shallow-water blackouts.
I remember listening to his approach to the sport, and feeling
that his gentle, spiritual relationship with diving was not carrying
through into his competitive approach. He talked the talk, often
referring to God and meditation in relation to his dives, but
didnt seem to be able to walk it quite so convincingly. It is
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sidewalk with each spit wondering what the hell was wrong
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with me. I knew the external problem that was aecting my
dives, I just didnt know how to correct it.
Nicks goal was to hold all US national records by the end of this
year. Vertical Blue in the Bahamas, where he made last weeks
tragic dive, was the nal event of 2013, and Nick was facing his
last chance to full his goal with his CNF dive to 72 metres.
Back in France, I remember advising him that, if he truly loved
freediving and wanted to be in the sport for the long-run, he
needed to soften his approach, calm his hunger for records and
big numbers, and allow time for his body to adapt. But it seemed
he was not able to take this advice. His September blog now feels
like a premonition: Numbers infected my head like a virus and
the need to achieve became an obsession. Obsessions can kill.
Despite his promise to be more loving to himself, to choose life,
his friends say that he was deeply troubled in the Bahamas. He
was physically and mentally exhausted from a gruelling year of
training and competing.
We will never know his thoughts as he went into his nal dive.
Seventy-two metres was not a challenging depth for Nick he
holds the US Record in Constant Weight (diving with a monon)
at 100 metres. However, in this dive the surface sonar and
bottom camera showed that he hesitated and turned at around 63
metres and again at 68 metres, before deciding to continue his
journey down, in a slow horizontal position, to 72 metres. Nick
sensed that he should stop at 63 metres; he listened for a
moment, but decided not to heed the warning. This doubt, the
tension it caused in his body, this decision cost him his life.
In more than 20 years of competitive freediving not a single
athlete had lost his or her life. There was good cause for Nick to
believe that his decision was a balanced one, if not necessarily the
wholesome one. He weighed up the risks of turning early and
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new national record. He had returned from dives on many other
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occasions with a lung squeeze and had continued to dive deep.
Why should this dive be any dierent?
Of course, all of this is conjecture. The post-mortem examination
will uncover some of the physical mysteries behind Nicks
untimely death, but not the mental or emotional ones. They are
Nicks and Nicks alone.
Those of us who go on living are faced with how to integrate this
new information. The tendency for divers to cover up their
injuries has been causing increasing concern among athletes and
within the governing body, Aida. In 2011, a similar accident
resulted in the near-death of a British diver at the World
Championships in Greece, and this year the event limited the
amount divers can increase the depth of announced competition
performance on top of their nal training dive. There is also
growing concern about packing a technique used to increase
the volume of the lungs and the amount of air that divers can take
down with them; a handful of serious injuries are showing that
this technique does not come without some considerable risks.
Despite this, freediving has an enviably safe record in
comparison with most other sports. It can only be hoped that the
phenomenon of lung squeezing and over-packing will now be
taken seriously by all athletes, so that it will be unnecessary for
Aida to have to ban squeezed athletes from training and
competing. Regulation has a habit of pushing illegal behaviour
into the shadows, rather than really preventing it. Athletes are
already hiding their squeezes. We need to encourage openness
through education and sharing in order to ensure safety.
Maybe the light, generosity, passion and joy that Nick expressed
and shared with all of his fellow freedivers will continue to live on
in us all through a heightened, more healthy awareness and
respect for our own wellbeing, and a realisation that the records,
as nice as they are, are not the ultimate reason we freedive.
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church on Long Island, Bahamas, where he helped rebuild the
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roof in exchange for accommodation to pay the way for his diving
Sara Campbell is a British freediver and four-time world record
holder. She now coaches in Dahab, Egypt, where she lives, and
around the world. discoveryourdepths.com /
[email protected] Reuse content
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